Lost and Found
by CraftyNotepad
Summary: What's not in Keely's purse? It's important.
1. Acquire

Disclaimer: Hey, I've read the other authors' disclaimers and since nobody else claims Phil of the Future, can I have it?

Author's Note: If you're into Pheely, and love a good mystery, be certain to check out **When Your Knees Buckle** right away. It's really good and only a few chapters left.

Lost and Found

Chapter One - Acquire

It's a quiet afternoon for Neil Hackett at H. G. Wells Jr./Sr. High so far.

Not like this morning when Vice-Principal Hackett confronted Pim Diffy about her unauthorized selling of high-priced snacks since all the school's vending machines suddenly seized up simultaneously. Where did all that junk food go to? One second it was piled high on a couple of overhead carts, and the next? Poof! How does she do that ? Three belly button dress code violations later, his day has quieted down sufficiently for him to indulge in a some herbal tea and his mediation mantra, "Down, down, down with the Diffys."

After his chakras were better aligned, he'd perform his weekly scan of active substitute teachers, not that he needed one. If a teacher's sick, well, who's going to teach the class? Certainly not him. No, Neil Hackett perused the substitutes list for a certain name: Vanderhoosey.

A stylish knocking on the doorframe to his office startled Mr. Hackett. Coughing at first, he cleared his throat by spraying out his chamomile all over his Administrator of the Month Award.

"Diffy!" shouted Mr. H. He didn't know who was at the door, but the odds were in favor of at least one Diffy.

"Um, no. It's me, Vice-Principal Hackett. Candida Keagle. Miss Freelander told me to give you a message."

"Well, let me have it, Miss Keagle."

Candida started to bring her hands out from behind her back with the note when she spotted a familiar purse on the vice-principal's desk. Her right hand never made it around her waist to reveal the scrap of paper.

"Note? What note? OH, The MESSAGE," clucked Candida. "Well, she said it was … very personal."

"Okay," urged Mr. H., "so 'tell' me the message."

"But it's very personal," insisted Candida, her eyes glancing again at the handbag, "so she couldn't tell me."

"I don't get this. Miss Freelander gave you a very personal message to give to me, correct?"

"Yes."

"But you can't tell me what it is …"

"Right."

"… because she didn't tell you?"

"Uh-huh."

Neil Hackett's hand slapped the front of his face, his fingers pretending to claw his own face off.

"Then why did she send you?"

"To tell you that she wants you - to go to talk to her?"

"She's on the other side of campus. I'll just use the intercom."

"But she wants you to come." Candida turned on her charm as she did so often with her new daddy to get him to buy her new clothes. "Think about it, Mr. Hackett - did she call you over the intercom? She wants to talk only to you - about something for only your ears - and I think it has to do with this Friday night," enticed Candida.

Mr. Hackett had been a lonely bachelor for a long time - too long. Things hadn't gone as well with Veronica as he had hoped, and, well, he was reduced to looking for signs of Miss Vanderhoosey surfacing once again on the chance that her boyfriend had finished the ninth inning for the last time and she'd be available now. Even though he'd only just started scanning the sub list, he made a decision. Yes, he'd give Miss Freelander a chance. After all, she was only ten or twelve years older than he; that probably made her even more desperate than he was.

"Thank you, Candida. I"ll walk you back to class."

Candida considered grabbing the pocketbook off Mr. H's desk as she left, but decided it was too risky. Besides, she didn't just want the purse; she wanted to find out what was inside, and that required time, and maybe an empty office.

"That sounds 'super,' Vice-Principal Hackett - uh-oh. You better go ahead without me, Mr. Hackett. I gotta -," Candida motioned her head toward the girls' bathroom down the hall.

"Huh? OH! Right. RIght. Okay, I'll go and you come when you're done with -," Hackett's voice trailed off and his hands made some weird gestures in the air between them before he started to perspire and walked quickly down the hallway in the other direction.

Candida takes only a few steps in the direction of the bathroom before looking over her shoulder, smiling, and quietly pacing almost as quick back into his office before closing the door.

_.:|:._


	2. Fathom

Disclaimer: Is Phil of the Future mine or the Disney Channel's, Officer? Well, I don't have any papers, but why don't you ask us both to describe it and decide who it really belongs to? Either that, or put us on opposite ends of the school cafeteria, call it , and see which one it picks.

Author's Note: Phil of the Future, Season Three, Four, More? Hey, it's working for The Jetsons! Google modthesims and Jetsons to see how the Simms were instamorphed into another 22nd Century family and their neighborhood. What's good for the Jetsons is good for the Diffys and Pickford, and we have plenty of images between the series and the video game.

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Chapter 2 - Fathom

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Placing her own handbag upon the Vice-Principal's desk, Candida lifted her target and was struck by its lightness. Its bulk belied it's actual weight. Sure, something was in there, but what? As a thread passing through a needle, the hand of Candida Keagle finds its way though the mouth of her target, the unguarded purse left on Hackett's desk. What will it find first? Space. It is uncharacteristically empty for a teenager's purse - especially if it belongs to the girl Candida thinks it does. Why is there such a void inside? Well, if the purse fits …

Suddenly, there's a tapping on the glass blocks which make up part of the walls of Mr. Hackett's office which prompts its intruder to jump! Candida stops breathing for a moment until she recognizes who has caught her in the act; it's one of her admiring trolls, Fiona Lamky. Relieved that it is nobody important, Candida shoots her a dirty look and waves her inside.

"Candida, what are you -"

"Watch the door, Fiona. Tell me if Mr. Hackett is coming back."

If Lamky can sneak up on me, Fiona considered, then anyone could. No time to be pussyfooting around; Miss Keagle considered dumping the contents of the purse on the Vice-Principal's desk before deciding on the floor. The floor would make for a better alibi if she got caught, she imagined. The standard compliment of items scattered over the carpet: cell phone, a couple of pens, lipstick, receipts from shopping in the Pickford Mall District, … where were the items that made the purse's owner a legend? Where was the petroleum jelly that she used to make emergency lip gloss to help out girls on Picture Day? There wasn't even an emergency safety pin to come to the rescue? The phone! There was bound to be some good intelligence on that.

"Candida, what are you doing?"

Candida ignored Fiona; she was too busy worrying about about how she was going to crack the cell's password. She tried several before slapping her forehead and saying, "Duh." A simple four-letter word was all it took to unlock the phone. Phone directory: Full. So, she did have a life after all; so much for the all but empty pocketbook. Candida next looked up recent calls: just a couple of numbers popped up. So much for living. The phone's owner had no social life at all, just her mother and a guy she liked. Yawn, this was getting dull.

"Candida," Fiona urged, but Candida was oblivious to her.

"Candida." This time the voice was different.

Candida attempted to gulp before looking up, but found she couldn't swallow. Those shoes - Mr. Hackett never wore something so stylish.

"I was just picking up - it must have fell - Fiona, you saw," stutters Miss Keagle as she starts to shove the items back into the bag by clawed handfuls. Keely Teslow! Why couldn't it have been Mr. Hackett who caught her red-handed? "Fiona, get down here and help me!"

"I've been looking everywhere for my purse. Say, can you hand me my phone?"

Candida froze. She had left the phone unsecured.

Tenth grader Keely is insistent, "Please." Candida is crystal clear that Keely isn't really asking. In silence, she hands Keely her phone.

Never one for a poker face, open mouthed Keely gives away that she she notices that her password has been used. Recomposed, she clenches her teeth before speed dialing Phil. The girls on the floor stopped retrieving items so they could eavesdrop - seems they weren't capable of doing two things at once.

"Phil? Found it. Yeah, it was in Mr. Hackett's office, probably just turned into Lost and Found. I'll be there in a minute - Fiona and Candida are just helping me put my bag back together. See ya," hung up Keely. Now her attention returned to the floor.

Candida could gulp now; Fiona, too, and they do, but otherwise they arre frozen in Keely's gaze.

"Need some help?" asks Keely Teslow.

The eighth graders remain paralyzed, so Keely bends down and speedily helps the girls finish reclaiming the spilled contents of her purse. Even the items which haves ended up under Mr. Hackett's desk. Finished, and as Keely rises, so do her companions. Candida speaks at last.

"What happened to you?"

"Pardon?" aghast, Keely has been caught off guard.

"You used to be - and now you're just so - why is your life as empty as your purse? You used to be somebody, Keely Teslow."

Keely now sees what is going on - Candida is positioning herself to be the new alpha female of Herbert G. Wells Jr./Sr. High School's social set. Keely sighs and smiles. At least Candida's not another PIm, having her sights on the entire world. But where are Keely's? What did happen to her?

The door opens and Candida and Fiona gasp expecting the return of Mr. Hackett. The new arrival is somewhat shorter and has more hair on top.

"Great, Keels. You found it," is remarked with signature smiles, both his and Keely's. "Ready?"

"Just a sec." Keely turns to the snoop. Candida had only been looking for answers, as everyone does. Well, not by going through other people's purses, but Keely understands and forgives her just the same. "Good luck with that, Candida," and then Keel touches Candida's shoulder, just as Pim once describe Candida doing.

"With what?" demands Candida.

"You know."

"But what happened to your life?"

Keely looks in Phil's direction, "You know," and she exits with him and Fiona, not Candida, gets it.

"Well, that was a waste of time," declares the head Fashion Zombie.

"Just what I was thinking," agrees Mr. Hackett entering his own office. "Miss Keagle, Miss Lamky, what are you both doing out of class and in my office without supervision?"

Candida furiously tries to come up with anything. Fails. Sighs.

"I thought as much." Oblivious to the absent handbag, Hackett continues, "I just had my exercise for the morning, Ladies. Miss Freelander was at a loss to recall what her message was, so I have a message for you, Candida: three weeks Saturday detention. Would like to join her, Fiona?"

"No, thank you, Mister - Vice-Principal Hackett. I only came in because I lost something, but I found out that I just need to keep looking. It's not here and Candida - Candida can't help me find it. I'd like to go back to class now."

Fiona was waived back to class, and Mr. Hackett? He settled into his chair thinking that his job had suddenly become just a wee bit easier.

_.:|:._


End file.
